How to Paint Steel Legion Tanks (Astra Militarum Painting/Weathering Guide)

Today, I'm presenting my step-by-step guide to painting a Steel Legion tank (a Deathstrike missile). I created this scheme for a new army I'm working on and I've kept it as succinct as possible. There are a lot of layers in here, but I've maximised the impact to time spent ratio to create a scheme that packs a punch fast. I have used an airbrush, but all of this could be done with a brush, it would just take more time. Speaking of time, the total painting time from start to finish for this tank was only 4 hours and 30 minutes. I've spent longer than that on single infantrymen for some armies! 

Even if you're not interested in painting steel legion, it'll probably still be an interesting article, as I'm going to really hammer through a lot of techniques that you may have never used before. With that out of the way, let's get started.

1) I gave the whole model a basecoat with Vllejo German Grey using the airbrush. It covers well, but some placed needed 2 coats to really get it good. I should mention that I started first with a Chaos Black undercoat to make sure that the paint would adhere.

 2) I applied a highlight to the whole model with the airbrush focussing on the upper areas. For this stage, I used a 50/50 mix of German Grey and Dark Sea Grey (which despite the name looks a lot like codex grey).

 3) A final highlight was applied using pure Dark Sea Grey. I was quite sparing with this paint as it is quite light (despite the misleading name).

 4) Time for some cammo. It looks a bit green at first, but don't worry we're just using this mix as a basecoat. Speaking of the mix, I used a 50/50 mix of Orange Brown and Scrofulous Brown for this stage. These are still all Vallejo paints applied with the airbrush.

 5) Looking a lot better after this one. I applied a highlight of Ice Yellow (A paint that looks suspiciously like bleached bone) to the cammo stripes; basically covering the first layer I had put down except for the very edges. It looks almost battle ready (Did someone just say Tabletop Standard, as this would definitely do).

 6) This stage is optional, and if you don't want Retro stripes on your tank then skip to stage 10. I used Tamiya masking tape to mask off an area on the front of the tank. I only really trust the Tamiya stuff not to take the paint off when you peel it off later.

 7) I applied a few coats of Scarlet Blood towards the front of the tank using the masking tape as a barrier. When it was completely dry, I peeled the tape off (no damage, thank god).

 8) In order to create more stripes, I waited for the paint to dry completely before applying another strip of masking tape; this time closer to the front of the tank. I also used some plastic wrap to mask the missile off for painting.

 9) I applied a few coats of Dead White to the front of the tank to create a white stripe. I then peeled off the tape and admired my handiwork. I also used this  stage to paint the missile in white.

 10) With the basic colours down, I decided that it was time to add some weathering to the tank. For this, I used a mix of 50/50 Cavalry Brown and Black. I applied this to the lower areas of the hull around the tracks. I was fairly sparing with this colour, as I will be weathering more later on.

 11) I also used my mix from stage 10 to make some mud splashes. For this, I just dipped my paint brush in the colour, wiped of the excess and then held it up about 3 inches away from the model. Then I used the airbrush to blast my paintbrush with air; dislodgeing the paint from the bristles and spattering my tank's hull for a good dirty look. If you're going to try this, test it a few times first to make sure you don't just drown your tank with brown when you pull the trigger, as results vary a lot if you try it with too much paint on the brush!

 12) Probably my favourite part is the final step with the airbrush. I used pure black to go in and shade the brown weathering that I had put on. I also shaded some of the panels. I was vary sparing in this stage, as you just want to make the thing look worn and sooty, but not actually black.

I've added two pictures below that show how things are going so far. At this point, I was only an hour and a half into the tank and things were really looking good. It would be even faster without the red and white stripes as that stage took about 20 minutes.

A closer shot of the side, so you can get an idea of how the weathering has gone. Interestingly, pure black works great for blending the white and red into the hull adds a lot of depth to them.

 13) With the airbrushing stage out of the way, I took my tank indoors to work on the bodywork. The first port of call was to add definition to the panels. For this, I applied a directed wash using Agrax Earthshade. Essentially this meant that I used a small brush wash round all the rivets, and down the panel lines of the tank. It's important not to just wash the whole tank or it will ruin all of the careful. If you want to see this stage in more detail, Warhammer TV did a video tutorial of a more basic Steel Legion scheme that has this exact same stage (see this video at about 1.10 to see how this is done: Warhammer TV Steel Legion Tank Tutorial).

After that, I used a really big square ended brush that was about 1 inch across to very lightly drybrush Ice Yellow over the top of the whole tank (except for that white missile). This picked up the very edges of the armour plates and the rivets and brought the whole look together.

For painting tanks, I like my brush the way I like my like my Martinis; dry … and almost unnecessarily large.

You can see the impact the Agrax wash has had from all of those rivets. I've added some little grease trails here and there to them to give the impression of age. It's got the patina!

14) To finish the hull off, I went to another painting technique. I used some German Grey on a dry sponge to add some paint chipping and weathering to the edges. I then followed this up doing the same thing with Leadbelcher. I have to admit that I don't usually watch painting videos, but I did some research planning this scheme out and I lifted this technique directly from Warhammer TV as well. As it's already been described in great detail in their video, I'll add a like. The part you want is at about 3 minutes in. Link to Weathering Video.

15) With all of that work out of the way, I finally entered the end game for this model. By this point about 2 and a quarter hours had elapsed. So time wise, I was about half way there. The next steps would be a bit more long winded and finnicky as there really is no way to cut down on the hard work after a certain point and you just have to stick with it. I didn't continue taking pictures of every step as all the next steps are quite basic and just the same kind of things you'd do to paint an ordinary infantryman. I am going to list the methods and colours that I used though, as I'll want to know when I come back to paint another tank for the army (hopefully a basilisk will be coming up next!). Ok, so the remaining colours go something like this:

• Silver areas (including Tracks): Basecoat Leadbelcher, wash with Dryad Bark, Highlight with Army Painter Plate Mail Metal, wash with Nuln Oil.
• White Areas (Banners): Basecoat Rakarth Flesh, Highlight 50/50 Rakarth Flesh and White, Wash with Agrax Earthshade, Highlight with White.
• Blue Areas (Lenses): Basecoat Dark Prussian Blue, Highlight successively with White. Gloss Varnish lenses when complete.
• Black Areas (Gun Bodies): Basecoat with Abaddon Black. Edge Highlight with Dark Sea Grey.

16) With all of the colours down and ready to go, the last stage was to apply the decals and add a final light stippled weathering with Dryad Bark just to blend in the transfers a bit and to unify anything that it looking just a little bit too clean.

The weathering as it appears on the finished model.

Well, that's it. The tank is complete. I hope somebody actually bothers to read to the end of this article! Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or if you want to know anything about the painting methods that I've used. 

If you found this article interesting, don't forget to follow the blog or check back later to see how the rest of the Steel Legion come out. I might even write out a tutorial for the infantry!

Airbrushing and Masking Miniatures - Plus Blue Steel NMM Technique

Masking, is there anything worse? It just never seems to go quite right, and no matter what fancy product you use it can be a bit of a battleground. Most of the time, it tends to go two ways; you either mask so well that you end up peeling the paint off when you take the tape away, or you do it too tentatively and end up with overspray and a bad finish.

Despite these concerns, I've been working on a technique that gives good coverage and protection, whilst not doing any damage. I managed to try it out this weekend on my Infinity Guijia, and it worked wonders.

I started by painting the orange armour sections with the airbrush (as orange is the main colour I didn't do any masking). I completely finished these by adding in edge highlights with the standard brush, and when I was happy, I gave them a coat of Vallejo Satin Varnish. This has the same lustre as the regular paint, but helps protect it from the next steps (It is also very important for my secret overspray defence technique, but more on that later). I painted in the areas that I wanted to do in Steel NMM in black with a regular brush as I was going to add a blend with various greys to them.

At this point, I usually find that something strange will happen. I'll be sitting there at my painting table and the airbrush will start to talk. It'll eye up the masking tape and say "Hey buddy, I thought you were a real man ... you don't need to mask anything, I wouldn't overspray on you". Try not to listen though - it's a trick. Even when it brings up all the progress you've made, and how nice your last mini was...

I find that Tamiya make good masking tape. It's pretty much as simple as that. I've used a few different brands, but it's the only one I trust not to weld itself on and come off with all of my hard work stuck to it. I have the varnish too for protection and I try not to leave it on there too long (an hour or so should be enough time to get what I need done). It does take a bit of time to get the tape on there and get coverage that you're happy with, but you really can't cut any corners. If you only need to mask the model to paint one thing that sticks out, I recommend using some plastic wrap like you used to have for your sandwiches, as the coverage is good and fast and I've never had any problems with peeling it off.

Blue-Steel NMM (Non Metallic Metal)

Top tip for mixing paint for the airbrush - mix it separately, not in the airbrush's cup and the consistency is right when it runs freely.

For the blue steel effect, I painted 4 layers over the black with the airbrush:

1. A general highlight with a mix of black, Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue and white. This is a pretty dark mix, and the blue seems to help get some interest into it as well as aids the non metallic metal appearance.
2. I followed up with another highlight, mixing in a greater quantity of white this time, and focusing on the upper areas and places that seemed like they should be reflective.
3. I finished up with 2 highlight layers of pure white. The reason for the second coat was to try to intensify the "shine" that I was going for.

This was the colour that I used for the original mix (although this picture is from when I was painting it with the normal brush later)

After that, I painted his sword in blue, and then it was time for the moment of truth; peeling the tape. Luckily, thanks to all that preparation, it went rather well.

Even with all of that masking, I still had a little overspray on some of the orange parts to contend with. This was quite noticeable on the pilot's arm, where the end had got speckled with white unintentionally. Luckily though, I was prepared to deal with it, and that varnish was a real time saver.

Dealing with Overspray

Remember that varnish? If you're looking to make this work, I hope you applied it!

Like I said, this only works if you added varnish during the earlier step. This is because it protects the paint from what I'm about to do. Working quickly, I grab my airbrush cleaning fluid. This stuff is designed to break down paint in the mechanism, so it'll eat the paint right off. I take a fairly soft old brush, dip it into the fluid and then apply it directly to the overspray. I rub it for about 10 seconds, or until I see it dissolve and then wash the whole area out with a lot of clean water. I want to make sure that there won't be any cleaning solution left as I have no idea what it would do, so I recommend a lot of water (so obviously only do this once the paint you were applying is dry!).

Finishing Up

After a delicate scrubbing, the few little bits of overspray were gone and the mini was ready for the final steps. In this instance, that meant painting in some of the steel bits that I couldn't reach with the airbrush and then finishing up the steel with a final shade in the recesses and sharp highlight to get a bit more shine on it. For these steps, I used pure black and pure white respectively.

Painting with References - Knock it up another Notch!

Lately, in an attempt to improve my painting techniques I've been introducing some real life references into my work to try and get a more dynamic and interesting feel.

It all started when I bought a set of Scibor's Elven Ruins Bases. They feature a series of statue heads, and I wanted to do something cool with them. With a bit of a lack of inspiration coming from my own imagination, I thought I'd look at some statues on the internet and see if inspiration struck. Luckily, it did and I was really inspired by the green lichen and mossy mildew green stuff. It really made me want to have a go at it myself, so I layered in a few green washes, first with GW's Biel-Tan Green Shade and then with Vallejo's Olive green. It really didn't take very long, but the results were quite striking and a lot more interesting than the plain sandstone-coloured statue head that I'd been working on.

Reference and base side by side.

It was while playing the PS1 classic "Soul Reaver" that I had another revelation. I decided to take the colours from the game and did a model inspired by the palette and look of the game. It's like "Art imitating life, imitated by art" ... or something!

Now if only someone would make an actual miniature of Raziel! If they did a Soul Reaver the miniatures game on Kickstarter it'd be "just shut up and take my money" time!

The greens have made for a really nice and scenic addition to both of the bases and it's all thanks to looking at a few pictures on the internet, so next time you're struggling to think of how to paint something, try looking at a picture or two - it might be surprising where you'll end up!

How to Paint - Infinity Yu Jing Orange

This week I'm looking at the art of painting orange - with a step by step tutorial for the Yu Jing faction for infinity. These are also the exact same colours I use for my Orange Necrons, so keep that in mind if you're interested. I'm using the airbrush heavily for this scheme, so if you want to know a bit about airbrushing you might find it interesting.

Lets get started!

As the weather was rather nice (a rarity in England) I've set up my airbrush outside for once!

Step 1 - Undercoat, Chaos Black

The first thing I did was undercoat the models with Chaos Black Spray by Games Workshop. This makes sure we get a really resistant finish and prevents any chipping (especially important on Infinity models as they're all metal). I haven't taken a picture of this stage as it seemed a bit superfluous. Just remember to keep the can a good distance from the mini, shake well and don't ever use the stuff under 10 degrees!

Step 2 - Undercoat, Grey Primer

I then primed the models with a good coat of Vallejo "Surface Primer - Grey". This stuff is almost white actually and gives a good base to work from for our bright colours.

Step 3 - Basecoat, Hot Orange

A goodly Basecoat of Vallejo's Hot Orange comes next. As this is a basecoat I'm just giving the model a goodly covering and really just getting it all on there!

Step 4 - Highlight, Orange Fire

I then run a highlight with Vallejo's Orange Fire. This time I'm adding fairly wide highlights across the panels to add a bit of definition to the shapes and to start to create the final colour that we're going for. I'm also painting up an Aleph bike in orange to use as an Aragoto for the Yu Jing force as I like the model.

Step 5 - Pre-Shade, White

Who just said that it looks terrible? Well, you'd be right.

In this stage what we're actually doing is adding a pre-shade of white. We'll be following it up with a final highlight of Yellow, but to get the yellow to show strongly over the orange we have to add a few points of light with our white first. This stage is the most difficult as you have to be really carefull not to get too trigger happy, or the whole thing will be a mess!

Step 6 - Final Highlight, Sun Yellow

I then go in and  spray a coat of Vallejo's "Game Air, Sun Yellow" straight over the white points that we added. This adds a stark highlight, but is easily smoothed into the base colour. The best part is that the "Air" paint range are already thinned and this layer acts a lot like a glaze that unifies the whole model and gives us the final piece of the smooth orange look that we were going for. 

Other Details

With the Orange complete I then turn my attention to any swords that I want to do in a crystalline blue. For this I mask the models off using a good quantity of Cellophane. It's worth noting that you should let the orange dry thoroughly first as you don't want to paint to stick to the wrap!

As the first layer, I use an ordinary brush to add a coat of Vallejo "Dark Prussian Blue" to the blades. 

I then Highlight with a layer of Vallejo Green Blue applied with the airbrush, then a layer of 50/50 Green Blue and White and finally a pure White Highlight. This gives the result pictured below. For my Necrons, these are the steps I use to paint their power coils and other glowing details.

Time to Grab a Paintbrush!

With all of the airbrush work complete it's time to grab your ordinary paints and go to work. It was also a relief to get inside again as the sweet smell of Vallejo products on a sunny afternoon was creating a veritable insect orgy on my patio!

The first step after using an airbrush is always inevitably to create some definition in the panels. For this I used an applied wash of Khorne Red directly into the recesses on the armour. It is really important that the paint is applied carefully and not washed over the whole surface or it'll destroy the highlight we've built up. If you're into Oil Washes this would be the time to break one out.

A Khorne Red wash is applied directly to the recesses

After that I continue to add definition by highlighting the edges of the panels with GW's Yriel Yellow. With this step the Orange armour is complete and all I have to do is paint in to other details.

A Yriel Yellow edge highlight finishes the armour off nicely.

Finishing

After all of that excitement I finish off the models with a few simple coats of paint. As I'm feeling generous I thought I'd share the other colours I used. 

White Areas - GW's Ulthuan Grey Base, Vallejo White Highlight

Blues - The same as I used in the airbrush. I then add a final highlight to the sword blade edges etc. with pure white

Blacks - Vallejo Black with GW's Codex Grey Highlight

Purples - GW's Xerus Purple with a Genestealer Purple Highlight and a Druchii Violet wash